The Riou is very punny like that.
Class-centric tradeskilled armor, rather than culture-centric.
Possibly each individual class but I doubt it. They have usually had multiple classes on the cultural gear.
So I would guess the class archetypes rather than your race.
War Pal Shd Bard Cleric would be plate style possibly.
War Ran bard for kickies maybe.
Cle Dru Shm for priests potentially.
I think you could infer clues from the Glowing Seb gear from HH Old Seb over the summer as it was designed the same as EOK group or raid armor that would transform into an item of a single class of the user, the Glowing Seb instead had several classes including the class of the user.

“The Riou is very punny like that.
Class-centric tradeskilled armor, rather than culture-centric.
Possibly each individual class but I doubt it. They have usually had multiple classes on the cultural gear.”

I was just having fun with the fact that a bit of (probably) Expansion Tradeskill stuff was pushed live, you can see them on the TS merchants at small bank, there are Emblem of X's on the Smithing and Tailoring NPC's, and each one uses a Classes symbol/icon

They could also be anything too though, like maybe it's back to the older armor making style where you combine a generic armor piece + your class emblem to make your armor this time instead

Level increase or not (I have no comment to give you on this), as far as I am concerned, even though I had a huge hand in it, Cultural is dead. There are many reasons, some that some people will like, some people will hate, and some people will understand. It's not important why. I try not to say *never* because things change all the time, but at this time I do not plan to bring it back.

“I was just having fun with the fact that a bit of (probably) Expansion Tradeskill stuff was pushed live, you can see them on the TS merchants at small bank, there are Emblem of X's on the Smithing and Tailoring NPC's, and each one uses a Classes symbol/icon

They could also be anything too though, like maybe it's back to the older armor making style where you combine a generic armor piece + your class emblem to make your armor this time instead ”

“Level increase or not (I have no comment to give you on this), as far as I am concerned, even though I had a huge hand in it, Cultural is dead. There are many reasons, some that some people will like, some people will hate, and some people will understand. It's not important why. I try not to say *never* because things change all the time, but at this time I do not plan to bring it back.”

“A month ago there was a post about tradeskill changes where a dev showed a marker board and was talking about new tradeskill gear for the expac.

If you read that, its obvious there will be a level increase.”

I suppose its quite possible there will be no level cap.
From looking at the posts, they are making a full set of new tradeskill stuff (like if there was a level increase). So I made that assumption.
Time will tell if they announce the lvl later, or are just updating all tradeskill stuff

“Time will tell if they announce the lvl later, or are just updating all tradeskill stuff”

Or just including tradeskills in the expansion as I (we) think they should be.
It's not the massive amount in the past with the way cultural worked, but it's still a respectable amount and I wanted to be sure every tradeskill has a part. No level increase, or with a level increase, I (we) like for tradeskills to have a place. My general target this time was to have a gear tier covered by tradeskills, and a gear tier is useful with or without a level increase. I hope to be able to keep this general plan in the future and iterate on it.

“Or just including tradeskills in the expansion as I (we) think they should be.
It's not the massive amount in the past with the way cultural worked, but it's still a respectable amount and I wanted to be sure every tradeskill has a part. No level increase, or with a level increase, I (we) like for tradeskills to have a place. My general target this time was to have a gear tier covered by tradeskills, and a gear tier is useful with or without a level increase. I hope to be able to keep this general plan in the future and iterate on it.”

“Or just including tradeskills in the expansion as I (we) think they should be.
It's not the massive amount in the past with the way cultural worked, but it's still a respectable amount and I wanted to be sure every tradeskill has a part. No level increase, or with a level increase, I (we) like for tradeskills to have a place. My general target this time was to have a gear tier covered by tradeskills, and a gear tier is useful with or without a level increase. I hope to be able to keep this general plan in the future and iterate on it.”

Thank you. I have been playing EQ for awhile now and your efforts are hugely appreciated. We met years ago and you were very friendly about discussing the game.

“Or just including tradeskills in the expansion as I (we) think they should be.
It's not the massive amount in the past with the way cultural worked, but it's still a respectable amount and I wanted to be sure every tradeskill has a part. No level increase, or with a level increase, I (we) like for tradeskills to have a place. My general target this time was to have a gear tier covered by tradeskills, and a gear tier is useful with or without a level increase. I hope to be able to keep this general plan in
the future and iterate on it.”

I know it would be a massive undertaking but I would love to see the tradeskill system get an overhaul. Even with "make all" added it is still a huge and tedious time sink so I have refused to touch it to do any of the quests tied to it such as the merc slots, the shawl aug or the artisan's prize.

I think most of the player base is 35+ and generally we just don't have 8-10 hours a day to devote to EQ like we did 10-15 years ago. Something to consider anyway. Thanks for what you have done and what you continue to do to keep this great game alive.

“Or just including tradeskills in the expansion as I (we) think they should be.
It's not the massive amount in the past with the way cultural worked, but it's still a respectable amount and I wanted to be sure every tradeskill has a part. No level increase, or with a level increase, I (we) like for tradeskills to have a place. My general target this time was to have a gear tier covered by tradeskills, and a gear tier is useful with or without a level increase. I hope to be able to keep this general plan in the future and iterate on it.”

I really hope you're keeping in the real spirit of tradeskills and making recipes for people that enjoy doing them to sell items to those that don't. If you're doing something whereby all the characters I play have to tradeskill to get upgrades (no drop mats or results), I'll likely become a very nonfunctional drunk.

New tradeskill items are great for the over all game. Requiring people to do tradeskills for quests or gear, horrible.

“Or just including tradeskills in the expansion as I (we) think they should be.
It's not the massive amount in the past with the way cultural worked, but it's still a respectable amount and I wanted to be sure every tradeskill has a part. No level increase, or with a level increase, I (we) like for tradeskills to have a place. My general target this time was to have a gear tier covered by tradeskills, and a gear tier is useful with or without a level increase. I hope to be able to keep this general plan in the future and iterate on it.”

It's sad really you can't win level increase or not people wont like either decision. But if beta is weeks away saying there is a level increase now will only help people who don't want one get over it before beta starts.

“It's sad really you can't win level increase or not people wont like either decision. But if beta is weeks away saying there is a level increase now will only help people who don't want one get over it before beta starts.”

Level increase or no level increase, people will buy it, inside themselves they have already decided it., due to addiction.

The only people who might not buy it atm, will be those that got nerfed, but going a bit of time, they will likely buy it after all.

Well, I can't imagine anyone who'd prefer no level increase to care all that much. There's lots of ways to accomplish the same thing. That's kind of our whole point. It's not THAT big of an annoyance to get new focuses, etc.

But people who think a level increase is somehow required or they're gong to lose out on something? They're already crazy so who knows what they'd do.

“I really hope you're keeping in the real spirit of tradeskills and making recipes for people that enjoy doing them to sell items to those that don't. If you're doing something whereby all the characters I play have to tradeskill to get upgrades (no drop mats or results), I'll likely become a very nonfunctional drunk.

New tradeskill items are great for the over all game. Requiring people to do tradeskills for quests or gear, horrible.”

I agree in spirit with this post, but hasnt the horse already left the barn on that? Too many have max tradeskill at this point to really be something you can trade on.

“A good thing with level increase is a bunch of new spells where cost/effect is balanced out from what amount of hps/mana has now. NOT out from what people had at end of COTH.”

But they did just spent the past year+ reducing the amount of mana everyone has to work with. Whether it's AAs that cost mana, QM changes, bard nerfs, etc. Plus they've added dicho/alliance spells that use a ton of mana. Basically, they've been account for that in other ways. Even little things like not having an EOK belt that's worth using for casters factors in to that. Adding new spells would make their job a lot easier in that sense but I don't think it's been ignored and you have to factor everything in not just spells and current max hp/mana based on equipment available.